As narrow rays of sun peered into the theatre at the stunning new Corus Quay building in Toronto last night, some of Canada’s brightest entrepreneurs sat eagerly, waiting for ideaBOOST’s most recent cohort to be announced.
“High-calibre,” “inspiring,” “creative” and “exciting” were just some of the words used to describe this year’s spring Cohort by the evening’s presenters.
“Congratulations to all of the companies who entered – the quality was exceptional,” The CFC’s Chief Digital Officer Ana Serano said.
Here’s a look at the new class:
- Motion Panels
an authoring tool that animates graphic novels, cartoon strips and story books for movile devices - Instaradio
a simple and powerful way to live stream and record audio that can be listened to on any device - Bemused Network
a community-based discovery service for entertainment and events - Lightning Platform
a cloud-based platform that tracks and targets user actions to aid product and service development - Wondereur
an app that brings storytelling to e-tailing, beginning with contemporary artists - AlertTV
an online system that enables producers to target and engage audiences using multi-platform strategies to measure success
These six new companies will each receive $15,000 in seed capital for their project as well as mentorship from thought leaders in the technology, business, marketing, media and product communities. In addition, ideaBOOST’s founding partners, Shaw Media, Corus Entertainment and Google, will offer strategic guidance as well as the potential for investment.
The work is just about to begin for these startups: the ideaBOOST 2013 Spring Cohort starts May 21.
“This year’s entrants were all of such a high calibre, that we’ll also be launching ideaBOOST’s first Affiliate Program, enabling all of the companies who made it to the shortlist to participate in a select number of ideaBOOST sessions, peer-to-peer learning and strategic assessment modules” Serano said, describing the new program.
Here’s a look at the shortlist of companies included in this new Affiliate Program:
Congratulations again to all of the startups that entered, and to this year’s 2013 Spring Cohort!
Be sure to stay tuned for updates on this exciting group of companies, as well as the ideaBOOST program.
